Walking With Dinosaurs

BBC

ABC DVD

R4

In 2000 the British Broadcasting Corporation released a masterpiece documentary that captured the imagination of audiences around the world. Walking with Dinosaurs was perhaps the most ambitious TV documentary series since The World At War and it had the highest cost-per-minute of footage. It was deliberately made in the style of a nature documentary, not a science one.

At this time dinosaurs were a popular topic with schoolkids but serious documentary footage on them was sparse. Attempts to produce animation or film of dinosaurs were patchy, ranging from the “glue some cardboard spines on the back of a lizard” to the cutesy dinosaurs of Disney Studios. The BBC set out to produce a serious documentary presenting accurate depictions of dinosaurs in an environment as close as possible to that of prehistoric times. Surprisingly finding the right background scenery proved to be the easiest part. There are still patches of country that match the fossil records. The pine forests of New Caledonia, geothermal areas in New Zealand, and Nothofagus forests in South America still exist and are close to what the dinosaurs would have lived in.

Animating the dinosaurs was not so easy. Nobody knew what colour a dinosaur was, for a start. The animators had to make guesses based on what was known of the dinosaurs themselves – a sort of drab camouflage colouring for an ambush predator and so on. Animators are a strange lot and in the Extras disk to the series there is a wonderful shot of a talking presenter being stalked by a purple and yellow checkered Allosaurus. In each episode they managed to “smash” a camera – a loose stone, a dinosaur bite. When a T Rex snarls at a camera, there is a splatter of saliva plastered on the lens.

The animators needed to know how the dinosaurs moved. They had the help of a number of respected palaeontologists to help them. There were surprises. To get a smooth fluid motion to a dinosaur’s movement the fossil bones were digitised and assembled on computer. In some cases the dinosaurs could not have moved in the accepted way because the articulation of their bones simply didn’t allow it. A dinosaur with a long neck could not have grazed on tree leaves if it its neck bones couldn’t get its head high enough. Instead it would have to have used its long neck to graze off bushes and small plants with the minimum of effort, sort of vacuum cleaning its way across the ground. Where a closeup was needed a suitable model was made up and animated by the Disney method of “animatronics”. Often a dinosaur’s actions had to be based on those of similar modern animals.

When the animated dinosaurs were placed on their appropriate background scenery the results were simply stunning. Each of the six episodes covers a particular type of dinosaur from the huge land animals to the “set of teeth with fins” marine reptiles to the great flying dinosaurs. The dinosaurs were not given cute names (except, of course, by the animators and production staff). The stories were told in a straightforward, factual manner and not romanticised or dumbed down. Kenneth Branagh’s beautiful narration gives the series a certain authority carried best by the British accent. When the series was shown on the U.S. Discovery Channel it was renarrated by Avery Brooks. I have heard from Americans that his slightly “Oh, Wow” presentation did nothing for the series. If there is any emotion in the series it is Episode 6, Death of a Dynasty. In this we see the great dinosaurs under increasing pressure from volcanism. Eggs are infertile and food is becoming scarce. Finally they become extinct when a giant asteroid slams into the Earth, triggering what is called the K-T Event. Or do they become extinct? We see the last survivors of the dinosaurs, the birds, and a new range that will inherit the earth, the mammals.

The series set a new standard for dinosaur recreations. There were a few follow-up series in the “Walking With …” range, but the dinosaurs appeared in more documentaries now that the practicalities had been worked out. Unfortunately not all the documentaries went anywhere near the same standard. Quite recently a U.S. series was issued that purported to show what major cities like New York would have looked like in the dinosaur period. A dinosaur walking down a New York street? The less said the better.

There was some criticism that the documentary included some scientific theories that were unproven in the geological record. In the U.S. a scene showing a young dinosaur being devoured by predators was cut. These are minor complaints, though. For general accuracy of content, visual appeal and sheer scientific interest I think this is one of the best documentaries ever made. The BBC is currently working on a remake of the series. It will probably first be shown as a full length film in 2012.

Reviews appear on the Synergy website with a single cover image. In the digital and print edition, reviews appear with multiple images and with expanded content.

This review will appear in Volume 4 No. 1 of the digital and print edition of Synergy.

We recommend you download the free digital edition (or buy the print edition) to get the most from Synergy. The print and digital editions of Synergy also include a large selection of articles and features not found on the website. If you have a limited download quota you can view the digital edition via the Issuu viewer on the digital edition page.

If you came to this page directly (and missed our menu), click here to go to the front page of Synergy Website or use the following link: http://www.synergy-magazine.com